Monday, September 24, 2007

A digression in Proust's The Prisoner on street-vendors' cries brought to mind a cry I haven't heard — or thought of — for years:

Southern-fried Elvis pretzels,
They are fresh out of the oven.

Or to add the proper emphasis:

SOUTHern fried ELVIS PRETzels,
They are FRESH OUT of the OVen.

The Elvis pretzel man was a familiar figure during my years as an undergrad and grad student at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. He could be found on a short dead-end section of Belmont Avenue, a street that separated the gated campus from the classroom building Faculty Memorial Hall. The pretzel man stood in the middle of the street, which saw virtually no traffic aside from garbage trucks and an occasional university vehicle. In warm weather the pretzel man wore an apron, the kind that proprietors of newsstands wore. In the cold, a shiny ski jacket ("pewter green," I'd call it, if there is such a color). The pretzel man was rather short and fairly broad, with a huge head of hair (more or less the color of his ski jacket). A laundry basket held the pretzels, which, if memory serves, sold for 50¢. Were they really fresh out of the oven? And if so, where was the oven? I have no idea, but the pretzels were indeed warm. They were also salty and chewy. A complete food, sort of, at least to tide one over between classes. I must have eaten dozens.

This little stretch of Belmont Avenue saw at least one other commercial venture during my time at Fordham: a coffeestand, where one could get something more drinkable than what the machines in FMH dispensed. The coffeestand had a short lifespan: its proprietor was almost certainly selling more than caffeine.

*

April 26, 2012: Found online: a November 9, 1978 Fordham Ram article about Elvis Lamanna, the Elvis pretzel man, complete with grainy photo.

comments: 14

Anonymous
said...

The Elvis pretzel man was at Fordham for a long time. I went to school there from 78-82, and he was in the same place then. Prices were 15 cents and a quarter. I think he wore the same jacket when I was there.

His name was Elvis Lamanna, and I believe he brought the pretzels by subway from either Brooklyn or Queens. His chant back in my day was: "GET your ELvis pretzels. FIFTEEN, fifteen." Later, he added the quarter pretzels to his inventory.

Great memory. Everybody who went to class in Memorial was chewing on one of those things...

I'm glad someone else remembers Elvis pretzels -- I have a friend whose years at Fordham overlapped mine, and he swears that he doesn't remember them. I was at Fordham from 1974 to 1980 (I stayed around for an MA).

And now I wonder whether my 50¢ is a misremembering of 15¢. 50¢ does seem a little steep for a pretzel.

Nostalgically just searched for Elvis Pretzels and found this blog. Fordham College '76-'80 and can still picture him outside FMH saying "Elvis Pretzels, fresh-out-da-oven" (which sounded more like fresh out-ee-o)

Yes 1985 - 1989 here too. and it was 'Twenty-Five, Twenty-Five! Elvis Pretzels.' And Yes he had a large Battlewagon Car, and he pulled the Pretzels out of his Trunk, and his hair was white by then. I would get one on my way to French class, if I had any money which wasn't often.

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